


of seeing things invisible

by WDW



Category: Naruto
Genre: Dimension Travel, Domestic Fluff, Fix-It, Fluff and Crack, I've never written fluff before so let's see how that goes, KkOb Discord Secret Santa 2018, M/M, Secret Identity, Time Travel, a family can be an orange masked recovering megalomaniac and his traumatized child soldier of a kid
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-31
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-10-01 15:39:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17246864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WDW/pseuds/WDW
Summary: In which Obito and Kakashi both grow up with imaginary friends, but while Obito is elated by the civilian photographer who doesn't judge him by the standards of his clan, Kakashi just wants this orange-masked maniac to leave him alone.(Featuring: identity shenanigans, fluff, and a very exasperated Rin who knows her boys far too well to be fooled by hair dye and a swirly mask, thank you very much.  Also Tobi in a frilly pink apron.Written for the KakaObi Secret Santa 2018.)





	of seeing things invisible

**Author's Note:**

> A gift for glas-onion/Pure Jay in the KakaObi Discord, who requested fluff! Featuring Sukea and Tobi, along with kid Kakashi and Obito. The KakaObi is between the adults only - the kids are kids, the furthest it goes is like... oblivious "why does this person get on my nerves so much" shenanigans. So I mean, canon. Also nothing weird between the kids and their adult selves. Like, at all.
> 
> I wanted to get all of this done before the deadline (this will turn out to be... ~10k words, maybe?) but there was a death in the family and I flew overseas for study abroad all the way across the world, so I guess you know what they say about the best made plans of mice and men. I still have another thousand words that I've written, but it didn't fit in this chapter. The rest will be up eventually, though! Just wanted to get what I have out there.
> 
> "Vision is the art of seeing things invisible.” - Jonathan Swift

Kakashi is four years old when he first gets his hands on a real kunai.

He had played with replicas before, but they had been wooden and painted and there was no way _anyone_ could mistake them for the real thing, let alone Kakashi. But a kunai was an easy enough thing to get in a shinobi household, and with his dad away and the supply closet door open ajar, it wasn't like he could turn down the opportunity.

The metal of it is heavy and cool in his grasp. It is so sharp that it takes almost a full minute before Kakashi realizes he has cut open the palm on his hand on the handle's edge.

He freezes, staring at the red bubbling from pale skin with a sort of blank horror. There isn't pain just yet, only a strange spreading numbness that he doesn't know how to put into words.

Dad isn't home and he doesn't know where to find him. But there's enough red now that it's trickling and rolling down the skin of his palm, and discomfort is starting to prickle into something much sharper.

There's a loud wail. It takes Kakashi a moment to realize that it didn't come from him.

He spins around, still holding his bleeding hand, and _stares._

Behind him, in his _home_ , is - a man, or maybe not, but most definitely a weirdo - wearing all skintight black and a ridiculous orange mask.

"Tobi is so sorry!" The stranger cries, head bobbing cartoonishly as he fretted, wringing his hands in exaggerated worry. "Tobi was here to look after Kakashi-chan, but Tobi didn't mean to get distracted..."

Kakashi looks up blankly at the person who had just appeared three feet in front of him, the throbbing pain from his hand completely forgotten in the tidal wave of confusion.

"But Tobi is here to help!" 'Tobi' announces. "So don't worry, Kakashi-cha -"

"Are you one of Dad's friends?" Kakashi interrupts, eyes narrowed.

"Nope," the masked man chirps, with a high-pitched voice that doesn't quite fit how much he towers over Kakashi. "I'm _your_ friend!"

He throws out a cheerful thumbs up with a black-gloved hand, as if that is answer enough.

Kakashi stares at him balefully. He's four, not _stupid_.

"When I tell my Dad that you made it past his barrier seals," he tells the weirdo bluntly. "he'll track you down with his ninken and kill you."

Tobi shrinks back at his look. "Wah, Kakashi-chan is scary!" He whines, with an air of such over-the-top fear that Kakashi is struck by the realization that whoever this is, he's not worried about Hatake Sakumo coming after him at _all_.

That, if nothing else, makes him wary. Kakashi takes a step back suspiciously. "Why are you in my house?" He demands petulantly.

The weirdo perks up. "Ne, Kakashi-chan, you might be a smart kid, but you're not so good at listening, huh?" He whispers conspiratorally, and Kakashi flushes a helpless angry red. "Tobi told you! I'm here to help, remember?"

Then suddenly, so quickly that Kakashi didn't even see a flash of movement, Tobi's orange mask is hovering right in front of his face.

He's kneeling down to his height, a single black-gloved hand holding onto Kakashi's wrist with a grip that's strong like iron without being uncomfortable. His other hand is teasing out a roll of bandages with unexpected attention to detail.

Kakashi freezes as Tobi wraps it carefully around his bleeding hand, so blindsided by the sudden development that the weirdo is close, _too_ close that he doesn't register the need to get away until Tobi lets him go with a satisfied noise.

"How does that feel, Kakashi-chan?" He asks cheerily. "Too tight? Too loose? Tobi can fix that, you know - Tobi's a trained professional!"

Kakashi opens his mouth, then closes it again, entirely and utterly bewildered.

Behind him, the door cracks opens.

He spins around, eyes wide. "Dad!"

Hatake Sakumo blinks at him - _only_ at him - with mild confusion. "Kakashi, you're up? It's not even five in the morning, I thought you would be -"

He sniffs, narrows his eyes. "Is that _blood_?"

"Dad, this weirdo just showed up in our house!" Kakashi jabs frantically at Tobi's masked face, who's still kneeling there with calm nonchalance. "He got past your wards -"

His dad tenses. "Are you hurt? Is that why I smell blood?"

And then a look passes over his face, something flinty and cold and _dangerous._ "Where did he go."

"He's -" Kakashi stares at the figure still kneeling beside him. Tobi cocks his masked face back at him, entirely at ease. "Dad, he's right _here._ "

Hatake Sakumo blinks, surprised in a way that Kakashi has never seen him before.

"There's no one there, Kakashi," his dad says gently, and taps the side of his nose. "I would have smelled them."

Tobi pushes himself up and, catching Kakashi's look of blank shock, gives him an entirely too jaunty wave.

"Until next time, Kakashi-chan!" He tells him cheerily, then something about him - _swirls_ , the air itself rippling around him as his form warps and twists -

And just like that, he's _gone_.

Kakashi can only stare on, mouth open.

"Kakashi," his dad repeats, puts a hand on his shoulder to turn him back around. "What happened?"

For the first time in his young life, Kakashi finds himself at a complete loss of words.

 

* * *

 

Obito is six years old and entirely terrible at everything to do with being a shinobi.

When he surveys the small grassy area before him, still breathing hard from an hour's worth of attempted training, he sees shuriken strewn everywhere. They're lodged in pretty much every place he could have hit, skidded off rocks and embedded in trees and even one, to his horror, that landed something like five feet _behind_ him.

No two had landed in even remotely in the same place.

He sighs, low and deep in a way that makes it come out more like a groan instead, and squats down low on the balls of his feet.

"Incredible!" Someone enthuses from behind him, too close for comfort.

Obito squawks and topples forward onto the grassy ground, completely undignified.

His new position on the ground gets him a much better view of the guy who had been creeping around behind him. Except - he doesn't look much like a creep now that Obito sees him, with his lightly tousled brown hair and kind eyes surrunded with purple. There's a look of genuine fascination on his face as he looks at the scattered shuriken, and he's kneeling down too, holding something strange and shiny and oddly delicate firmly in his hands.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you," he exclaims, and reaches out with a single hand to pull him back up. Obito very pointedly does not thank him. "But I did mean what I said. This is really impressive. And you can't be more than - eight? Nine?"

"I'm six!" Obito bristles. "And who the heck are you?"

The man blinks at him, as if surprised. Then he laughs softly, with an air of sheepishness. "And here I am, completely forgetting to introduce myself. I'm Sukea, a photographer. I just arrived in the village yesterday, and I've been searching for subjects for my work."

He stares, slow and confused. "A - photo... grapher? What rank of shinobi is that?"

"I'm just a civilian, I"m afraid," Sukea explains with a smile. Obito flinches automatically, but something about the way he corrects him doesn't make him feel stupid like usual. "My job is to wander around, taking pictures with my camera."

Obito squints. "...What, like the weirdos around the bathhouses?"

"No!" Sukea says quickly, and it comes out a strangled yelp. He collects himself visibly. "No, ah, I'm taking these photos for something entirely different. You see, I've always been fascinated by shinobi. I would never be able to be one myself. I'm simply too much of a klutz for that. And with my lack of chakra stores..."

He sighs a bit mournfully, but then his eyes widen and he perks up with realization. "Say, may I take some photographs of your training? I think that would be something that people living in small villages out in Fire Country would love to see. It would show a human side to shinobi."

Obito twitches. "You don't have to make fun of me," He says flatly.

Sukea blinks at him with confusion. "Make fun of you? Why would I -"

"I know I'm not good at this," he says, petulant despite himself. "You should go take photos of - I don't know. My cousins, or something. At least _they_ can hit the target."

The man laughs at that, a bit incredulously. "Not good? You're six years old, throwing around sharp weapons meant to kill! You've gone through what, three dozen of them now? And without a single injury to yourself?"

Obito hesitates. "But I didn't -"

"I would never be able to do something like that," Sukea says with conviction.

"...What, throw shuriken?" He says disbelievingly.

"Well, that too. I might take out an eye if I ever tried to throw one of those. My own eye, even," Sukea says, with an odd smile that makes Obito feel like he's telling a joke that only he knows. "No, what I meant is that you kept going. After the first dozen, after the second dozen. Even though you didn't succeed right at the beginning."

"I'm - " Obito coughs. "I'm not succeeding now either -"

"When I was a kid," Sukea says lightly, "I was used to succeeding. If I did something and I wasn't good at it at first, I decided I didn't want to do it anymore. I suppose it was lucky that for most things people wanted me to do then, I was very good at."

Obito squirms uncomfortably at that. He had never been good at things right at the beginning. Not at the end, either. "That doesn't sound so bad to me," he grouses.

"Maybe not," the photographer says agreeably. "But there were plenty of things I wasn't good at too, and because of that, I never wanted tried to be better at them, and told myself I didn't have to be good at useless things. I'm terrible with people, for example."

A sheepish smile slid its way onto his face. "And photography, for that matter."

Obito blinks, completely confused. "...You don't sound like you're bad with people to me," he says skeptically. "And if you suck at taking pictures, why did ya make that your job?"

Sukea's smile tightens. "Something happened to someone I cared about a lot," he says. "Several someones, actually. It made me realize how important all those things I called useless actually were. I decided that instead of making my whole life what I was good at, I wanted to try to get better at other things. I, ah, took up photography soon after."

Then the tenseness leaves his expression, and Sukea says easily, "But that's enough about me. I just wanted you to know that I really do think this is impressive. You've done a really good job here!"

Obito stares at him, jaw slightly open. "Oh," he says weakly. "Um."

No one had told him that before. His grandma would smile and pat him on his head sometimes when he told her about hitting the target, but always in a way that felt like she was humoring him. And Rin always cheered him on when she was around, but that was because they're _friends_.

But there had never been a grown-up who had seen his training and the work he had put in so that he can become a shinobi worthy of his clan, and said that he had done well.

That he had done _enough._

He's wanted that for as long as he can remember. Now that he's gotten it, he... doesn't know what to do with that.

The man's eyes go wide with realization. "I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable," he says quickly. "I know this is odd, a complete stranger coming in and telling you these things -"

"Thank you," Obito says honestly.

"Of course," Sukea says after a moment, a strange smile on his lips. "I am, after all, just telling the truth, ah - "

He blinks. "I'm sorry, I don't know what's come over me today. I didn't catch your name at all!"

"Uchi - Obito," he says quickly. "I'm just Obito."

It hits him like a bolt in the blue that he doesn't want Sukea to know what clan he belongs to. It's happened before, when people's expressions and eyes would change the moment they knew he was a Uchiha.

They didn't treat him... _badly_ , not really. The Uchiha clan was well respected in the village. But there was always... _expectation._ Always a odd _knowingness_ that made Obito feel weird, like just because he was Uchiha they were going to assume things about him and be disappointed when those things weren't true.

Be disappointed by _him_.

He doesn't want that again.

"It's good to meet you then, 'just Obito'!" Sukea declares with an impish smile, and shakes his small hand like he isn't just six years old.

Obito smiles hesitantly when he realizes that he _means_ it.

**Author's Note:**

> ch. 1 - meetings  
> ch. 2 - shit goes down because imaginary friends or not, these are child soldiers  
> ch. 3 - kannabi bridge


End file.
